Demetrius "HOOK" Mitchell

Other Sports Basketball
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5’9" dude with hops!

http://sports.ign.com/articles/560/560476p1.html

IGN Sports: You jumped over people, did a 360 over a car. What is the best dunk you ever pulled off?

Hook Mitchell: There is one dunk that I did over in Menlo Park where I broke the glass off of an alley-oop. That was my personal favorite because you think that a person has to be really big to shatter the backboard, and I’m only about 5-8. That’s the one that stands out.

IGN Sports: I heard you were dunking in grammar school when you were 5-2.

Hook Mitchell: At a young age, I could jump really high, and by the time I was about 5-3, I was already dunking. At the time, I had to develop a way to cup the ball because my hands weren’t big enough to palm it yet. I probably first started dunking in games when I was about 5-5. A teammate might throw me an alley-oop and I’d dunk it. It was funny to see the looks on everyone’s faces. No one was used to a kid that small or that young dunking in a game. I actually attribute my strong legs to how much I used to ride my bike. I would ride it up hills, ride it to my friend’s house, ride it wherever I needed to go. And I think by working my legs so much at a young age, it gave me that extra lift.

DVD
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0002F6BDI/102-8502552-1444963?v=glance

This was a great DVD. From all the highlights of him jumping over cars and his great athletic skills its so sad they he fell to his path of drugs. The odds were against him with no parents no positive role models. This DVD is more about basketball its about what happens to people in life who have no guidance. After all the years of abuse and loosing his teeth the talent is still there. I was amazed at how a guy can do drugs for so long and still do dunks off the backboard and 360’s at the age of like 34. If he made it to the league i don’t know how good he could have been because there have not been to many point guards his size that have lasted long but by watching some of his highlights he could have had a solid run. Some guys were quoted as saying he was better than Kidd and Payton two hall of famers. I might disagree with that cause you just never know how much of a structured game he had. Being a playground guy and playing in a NBA environment is two different things so you just never know. Hopefully now that he is out he can be a great role model to the kids in the community and stay out of those Oakland spots that he hung out in.

crazy stuff!!! :o

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For Demetrius “Hook” Mitchell, hoops came easy. It was life away from the game that posed the bigger challenge.

Mitchell, a 5-9 streetballer who once dunked while leaping over a car, is the subject of a feature documentary, “Hooked: The Legend of Demetrius ‘Hook’ Mitchell” that will air on NBA TV Monday night at 8 p.m. ET.

The Finals Blog caught up to Mitchell and asked him about his Oakland roots and who he’s rooting for in The Finals.

What current players do you like to watch the most?
Mitchell: “Gary (Payton) and Jason (Kidd), because I grew up playing against them, and I respect them and watch them the most. Some of the people I like watching are people like Richard Hamilton and Richard Jefferson, people that play at both ends of the court. Defense and offense. I also like people like Ben Wallace, because he’s the kind of player who works hard and lets everyone else get the credit. I like Ron Artest and the effort he gives.”

What about guards like Marbury and some of the shorter players, who have similar playing styles to your own?
Mitchell: “I like Baron Davis and Steve Francis. They have the same body structure as me. I also like Marbury, for how quick he is.”

You once jumped over a car to dunk. Can you talk about that?
Mitchell: “It started as a hoax. When I was growing up, I was kind of adventurous. One thing led to another, and I started seeing how high I could jump and what things I could jump over. First, I started out by jumping over people. Then bicycles, then motorcycles, and then cars. And one thing led to another, and then in a dunk contest, they asked me to try it.”

Was that your best dunk ever?
Mitchell: “There were some dunks where I was looking into the basket, into the rim. Those were great, and then I shattered the glass one time. That was electrifying as well. And then there was this one dunk where I jumped up so high it felt like my head was over the rim, but I was so far away from the basket that I couldn’t dunk it. I had to throw it in. Like the way Richard Jefferson dunks sometimes, without even touching the rim. I call it flushing the toilet without flushing the toilet.”

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DVD website and trailer here - hops!

trailer is different on each site
http://www.nba.com/nba_tv/Hooked_on_NBA_TV-109793-466.html

http://www.hookmitchell.com/trailer.html

I saved the NBA.com high quality trailer to a real video file with net transport for those that can’t stream it

right click and save
http://www.members.optushome.com.au/coolcolj3/Temp/hooked_trailer_hi.rm

it’s amazing at his age 34-36, he still can jump like that!

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more clips

http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&cf=trailer&id=1808593017

note his missing teeth - I read that he lost em smacking his mouth on the rim… :sunglasses:

definitely a genetic freak - I always wonder how much higher these types of people could jump if they trained for it. But then again it’s like nature as well nuture since he did this growing up.
fast twitch and hyper CNS to the extreme - 2 legged jumper though, so he’s more an explosive strength type of jumper.

apparently he dunked on a 12 foot rim…

I’ll have to pick up the DVD

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preview of the first 8 mins of that Hooked DVD

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hooked/trailers.php

Damn that guy is lean and explosive, mid 30s as well :eek:

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yea, I read this in a Slam Article a year or two ago, I was awwed.